Falling Slowly

by Anita Brookner

  The same warder who had had her in his sights earlier informed her that the gallery was about to close. ‘Are you all right, Madam?’ he asked, seeing her haggard face. She summoned her last energies, attempted a smile, and retraced her steps down the echoing sculpture halls, which she now perceived as a sort of graveyard. She caught a taxi, managed to spare a glance at the unlovely river, as far removed from the ecstatic Turner as it was possible to be, wondered why she felt so little relief at being returned to reality. She was still sorrowful, filled with an almost terminal clairvoyance. She had been wrong to put her faith in that poor vision of hers. It lacked beauty, just as her thoughts did. Yet it, they, must have had a purpose. It might simply be that her life was intolerable, in which case it was only sensible to change it. But the cruelty – that, surely, was out of character? Would it not be possible to leave, but to leave in an open-hearted manner, for Max’s benefit, for Miriam’s? For she did not see how she was to continue as she was, a petty, idle, confused woman. She would like to redeem herself before it was too late. The adventure in the south of France might go ahead – it still seemed indicated – but like the picture viewed from a different distance its meaning had changed. What she must now embrace was not escape but exile. That experience in the gallery: she thought of it as the abyss. There had been others. She would seek a last solace in the sun, and if possible celebrate what was left to her. But she would act leniently. Now when she looked at this projected exile, shorn of its self-important embellishments, she saw that it could still be accomplished, but easefully, and with due care for her companion. She thought of Max, who would be homesick. She would be homesick herself. But was this not a condition of living in the present? And for those like herself, denied the painter’s radiance, would it not be as well to sigh, and pick up the burden once again, and, once again, try even harder to arrive at acceptance?

  ‘Yes, I went to the Tate,’ she said later that evening, when Miriam telephoned. ‘Yes, lovely. You don’t mind if I have an early night, do you? I’ll see you at the weekend, won’t I? Yes, fine. Goodnight, then. Take care.’ And replaced the receiver gently, so as not to disturb Miriam any further.

  13

  ‘The thing is,’ said Miriam, ‘I feel I am here under false pretences.’

  ‘Oh, do stop saying that. You are here because I asked you to be here. I hope you’re hungry.’

  ‘I’m always hungry. I suppose it’s because I’m such a limited cook. But you’re right. I’m being rather rude. Do tell me about yourself.’

  ‘Women always say that when they’re anxious to please. Are you anxious to please, Miriam?’

  ‘Well, I’m not averse to trying. And I am interested.’

  ‘Well, I was born, grew up, went to school, university, taught for a bit, and then got a job. I work mainly for the BBC. And I work a bit on my own. Politics fascinate me, the history of government, and so on. Have you decided what you want to eat?’

  ‘Fish, I think. Turbot. And are you now or have you ever been married?’

  ‘Ah, that sort of information usually comes later, doesn’t it? But yes, since you ask, I was married briefly, soon after I left Oxford. We were both too young. What is it one says on these occasions? It didn’t work out.’

  ‘And since then?’

  ‘You mean is my mistress at home waiting for me? I have of course told her I’m working late. No, nothing like that. And you? You strike me as rather solitary.’

  ‘I’ve become so, certainly. I suppose I could say that my marriage didn’t work out either. It really didn’t. Jon was meant for another kind of woman entirely. Or perhaps for no woman at all. I wanted to be married, you see. I thought it would be easier than it turned out to be. But I felt guilty because in the end I didn’t like him very much.’ She smiled briefly. ‘Mine is not a success story. I live on my own. I work steadily. I do the sort of work that takes no account of weekends. I suppose yours is like that too?’

  He nodded. ‘I don’t mind that. I feel I’m still a student. But I think you do.’

  ‘Yes, I do. I’m a very reliable worker, always have been. But lately I’ve begun to realize that I don’t want to work any more.’

  ‘What do you want to do?’

  ‘I want to live a normal life, get up late on Sundays, read the papers. I daren’t read too much because it might interfere with the text I’m working on. I want to go out for walks, spend a morning shopping, that sort of thing.’

  ‘You could come out for walks with me.’

  ‘I’d like that. But I don’t get a lot of free time. Isn’t that absurd? I’m entirely autonomous, can make my own hours, and yet I feel constrained to sit down every morning at seven so that I can put in a couple of hours before going to the Library. I could stay at home all day, of course. But I don’t think I could stand my own company.’

  He watched a shadow darken her face, and regretted it. She had been looking pretty, animated, her colour high. He wanted to know more, but sensed that he was on delicate ground.

  ‘Why don’t you care for your own company, Miriam?’

  ‘It seems undernourished. Impoverished. I have no ties, you see, except for my sister. I love my sister, but we don’t want to live together, even to see each other very much. Have you any sisters?’

  ‘No, alas. One brother: he’s a farmer. We get on very well. I’m rather fond of my own company, though.’

  ‘Are you? How extraordinary. And have you no ties?’

  ‘Several mistresses, of course. They club together to buy me little luxuries.’

  She looked at him cautiously. He laughed. ‘Your expression! No, I’m alone, but it suits me. I might have to go abroad at short notice, you see. Here’s your fish. Do you think you’ll like that?’

  ‘It looks delicious.’ After a minute, ‘It is delicious. What a nice place. Do you know it well?’

  ‘Pretty well, yes.’

  ‘You bring your mistresses here, I expect.’

  ‘It’s useful for meeting colleagues, or interviewing Trades Unionists. And I like a good meal.’

  She thought he looked as if he did. He was broad-shouldered, with a large but elegant head. His face looked Roman, or as she imagined Romans to have looked, with a thin slightly curved nose, a firm mouth, eyes shrewd, assessing, as if he were about to go to the Senate or the Colosseum – either would be acceptable; he would not be averse to a little bloodletting. Yet he had himself well in hand, appeared certain of his place in the world, was a stranger to deference, anxiety, self-doubt. He had arranged this evening to suit her, had waited patiently until she had run out of excuses, and then had calmly told her that he would meet her at the restaurant at seven-thirty. ‘I take it you don’t want me to pick you up?’

  ‘No, of course not. Do men still do that?’

  ‘I believe some of them do, yes.’ Now he said, ‘You were obviously telling the truth when you said you were hungry. What would you like to follow?’

  ‘Tarte Tatin, I think.’

  ‘I’ll have the same. Excuse me a minute, would you? There’s a man over there who is pretending he hasn’t seen me. We have to have a meeting, and he knows I’m going to ask awkward questions. I shan’t be a minute. Will you be all right?’

  ‘I’ll be fine. What could possibly happen to me?’

  She drank a glass of wine and came to the conclusion that she was enjoying herself. This restaurant in Covent Garden, which she did not know, obviously aimed at the higher end of the market. There were no mobile phones, no men with unsuitable companions, no familiarity with the waiters. All was decorous, gentlemanly, like an exclusive club. She thought it typical that a man like Tom Rivers – easily masculine, easily in control – would choose this place rather than somewhere smarter, more frivolous, more feminine. She leaned back in her chair, tried to glance discreetly at his broad back bending over a distant table, ranged contentedly round the room, and then saw Simon, sitting in a corner, with a girl. Even as she looked, she saw his hand reach out to stroke the
girl’s hair. He was smiling lazily. The girl, meek, her eyes cast down, like a heifer, was beautiful. She submitted to having her hair stroked as if it were something she expected, as if being caressed in a public place were an everyday occurrence. Simon, one elbow on the table, his hand propping up his chin, totally absorbed, his other hand fingering a strand of the girl’s long hair, was apparently oblivious to everything and everyone else. Miriam hastily averted her eyes as Tom Rivers joined her.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ he said. ‘You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.’

  ‘I thought I saw someone I knew,’ she said. ‘But I was wrong.’ She applied her fork valiantly to the glutinous slice of tart on her plate, congratulated herself on showing so little emotion, and sat back with as much composure as she could still manage. ‘I’m sorry, Tom, a sudden wave of tiredness. Shall we go? Or rather shall I go? I’m really rather anxious to get home.’

  He watched her narrowly. He was annoyed; she could see that. She had spoiled his evening. This precipitate departure was unmannerly, altogether deplorable. Yet unless she left soon she did not see how she was to behave in a rational manner. She knew that in days, years to come she would see that hand reach out to stroke the long hair, knew that this scene, almost a primal scene, would never be explained to her, for who would explain it? It was self-explanatory, needed no further gloss.

  She was aware that her plate was being removed, that the bill was being paid.

  ‘I take it you didn’t want to wait for coffee?’ he said stiffly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Tom.’ There was nothing else she could say.

  In the street, by the open door of the taxi, the engine running, she held out her hand, then reached up to kiss his cheek. He caught her face in both hands, and said, ‘I want to kiss you properly, but I have a feeling this is not the time. What happened in there? Were you upset because I left you?’

  ‘No, no,’ she said distractedly.

  ‘But something happened, didn’t it?’

  ‘Another time, Tom.’ She had nearly called him Simon.

  ‘Promise me that there will be another time.’

  ‘Yes, I promise.’

  For he was the better man; of that there was no doubt. More adult, more subtle too. He had not interrogated her, as he might well have done, did not rebuff her simplistic excuses. He had looked genuinely concerned, curious, but was too polite to enquire further. He released her face, gave her a brief kiss on the cheek, and said, ‘So I can telephone you between seven and nine in the morning, then?’

  ‘Please do. Goodnight, Tom,’ and vanished inside the taxi. ‘Lower Sloane Street,’ she managed to say, expecting to cry, to collapse. But in fact she did neither, sat stonily upright, as if she might never speak again. To whom could she offer an explanation of her behaviour? Not to Tom Rivers, who had every right to feel aggrieved; not to Beatrice, who was all politeness, who would never in her life commit such a solecism. A sense of shame now overlaid her shock: she felt as if the entire restaurant had witnessed her confusion. She was at least sure that Simon had not seen her. This was just as well, as she had almost stumbled on the way out. Tom had taken her arm, had steadied her. Somewhere in her mind was a sense of true gratitude. He was kind. She might need his kindness, but not yet, not while illness threatened, breakdown. These must first be dealt with.

  In fact once she reached the flat she felt devoid of the anger she had half expected. She felt consternation, a retrospective embarrassment, as if she had been a gullible girl, willing to be taken in by someone with a superior ease of manner, like King Cophetua and the beggar maid. But in the picture, from which most people know the story, the beggar maid looks stunned, not by her good fortune but by her inability to overcome her original lowly condition. Those who are born lowly do not rally quickly to a change of fortune. She felt, no, she knew, that she must always have demonstrated an unappealing humility. But her wordless acquiescence had pleased Simon; of that she was quite sure. He was light-minded, but she had been part of that light-mindedness, that almost casual desire which had seduced her by its effortlessness. The effortlessness had been contagious for a time; now she saw that she had acted out of character. She was a serious person. His great gift to her had been to make her feel as inconsequential as she somehow knew that he did, had always done. His life was satisfactory, regulated; but he had no real needs. His charm should have warned her that this was a man who did not lie awake at nights tormented by moral problems. Briefly she remembered her sense of him in the chalet at Verbier, her intuition of a lax, self-indulgent, slightly scabrous character lazily taking his ease, while she walked through the gloom of a December afternoon, trying to forget that it was Christmas. She had looked up at his window, half fearful of seeing him. This image was burned onto her retina. In some ways she would be relieved if there were no further meetings. She had been revealed to herself as a suppliant, whereas his only failing was a trouble-free partiality from which, she reminded herself, she had benefited. He had thought that the act of love needed no explanation, no glossary. So that any explanation would be redundant. It would be altogether sensible to forget the whole matter. Besides, it was now divested of any significance. And she was too old to continue to take it seriously.

  When the telephone rang she assumed it was Rivers, who in his nice way would be worried about her. She picked up the receiver with a sigh, faced with the possibility of summoning up reassurance, politeness, a convincing explanation.

  ‘Miriam.’

  ‘Simon.’

  ‘I saw you.’

  ‘You saw me leaving, I expect.’

  ‘I didn’t know you knew Rivers.’

  ‘Because of course you do know him.’

  ‘His brother farms near an uncle of mine.’

  ‘What was it you wanted, Simon? You’ve been out of touch for quite a long time.’

  ‘I have, haven’t I? Sorry, sorry. But I knew we’d meet up again sooner or later.’

  ‘She’s very beautiful, your girlfriend.’

  ‘Patience? Yes, she is lovely, isn’t she? If I weren’t a happily married man …’ He gave a mock heavy sigh.

  ‘And Mary?’

  ‘Mary? She’s fine. It was a false alarm. But that’ll be it, I’m afraid. No more little Haggards.’

  ‘Do you feel anything at all?’ she asked curiously.

  There was a silence, which neither felt able to break.

  ‘I did, you know,’ he said finally.

  ‘I did too. I still do.’

  There was a further silence. When it seemed as if there were nothing more to say she replaced the receiver. She knew that there would be no further calls.

  She stood by the telephone for about five minutes. She did not doubt that he was doing the same. Then, very slowly, she walked to the window, through which a cold draught was blowing. It had been an unseasonal autumn, windy, not light until about eight o’clock, dark again a bare ten hours later. She shivered in her thin suit, remembered the girl – Patience – in her crumpled blouse and flowered skirt, as if carelessness could in no way detract from her beauty. As it had not. She remembered a tanned cheek, that abundant hair, the downturned eyes, as if modesty forbade her to acknowledge his hand. Neither was eating. That fact, as much as his hand on her hair, argued the strength of the attraction. Although she could have asked him whether he had been alone when he telephoned she had not done so, had been suddenly frightened. She now realized that she had been frightened of him for the last few months, since she had last seen him, in fact. She had recognized a defence against encroachment, masked by a constant smile. She acknowledged her fear, too late for it to do her any good.

  Lower Sloane Street was black, quiet, so quiet that when a late-returning couple walked past she could hear the man speak quite clearly. ‘We’ll know more tomorrow,’ he said. ‘No doubt the office …’ and then he was out of earshot. She wondered why anyone should be having this sort of desultory conversation, in the dark, so late at night. On the opposite side of th
e road no lights showed. She supposed that she should go to bed, thought it a waste of time. To go to bed meant sleeping, and worse than that, waking up in the morning, facing a new day. She would doze off where she was, although she had never done such a thing in her life. A meticulous person, she appreciated the rituals of preparing for the night, the face wiped clean, the cotton nightgown cool against her legs. Sleep was not normally a problem, but latterly her dreams had been vivid, admonitory. In all of them she was found wanting, failed to find her way in an unfamiliar landscape, knew that to ask directions would meet only with scorn, with harsh hilarity. On such occasions she would remind herself on waking that she was healthy, solvent, independent. But she could not face up to the risk of being found wanting on this particular night, saw her health and her independence as derisory, the lonely endowment of one obliged to count her blessings. One should come by blessings naturally. One should not be obliged to manufacture them, to invoke them at every adverse turn of the wheel. She wished now only to drop her guard, but knew that this would be dangerous. Eternal vigilance was the price of liberty, she had read. It was now more than ever true.

  She thought of Beatrice, whose vigilance had never matched her own, might even have been willingly discarded in favour of romances, of romance itself, read about, savoured luxuriously, but without expectation. She had not made that endearing mistake. Perhaps she should have behaved differently, demanded a meeting. But she had known that it was over, whatever it had been. Even now she saw that the experience had been authentic, even saw that it was appropriate that it should be ended enigmatically. There was a finality about that telephone call. She would eventually return to normal. Normality meant looking calmly at the facts. No one was guilty, or perhaps they both were. She would give up self-examination, would telephone Tom Rivers and apologize. She owed that not so much to Rivers himself as to his own manifest lack of culpability. He had been decent. Decency was what she would now admire.